Just the fact that you could skip the expansion gives Arenanet a great incentive. Some people seem to think that the P2P model means great patches, but in reality the P2P model makes (in time) developers lazy. As long as no subscribers are lost then it doesn't matter if the patch is 'meh' to say at least. If you add up all the months of paying fees, was it worth it? For instance, was ICC (11 months) worth $165? You could buy several other games and/or expansions for that money.[...]

Which raises an interesting consideration as well: Do we actually get a better game by driving profits by that sort of short-term "Whoa!" factor?

We might.

We might also not. I'd like to point to the sort of misguided efforts many corporations (at least in the US) have adopted on account of the quarterly profits mindset.

E.g.? Had a friend's company announce mandatory 1-week Q1 vacation time for all employees. Reason being that they'd then have to keep less cash on hand to cover the vacation time, so though they'd lose a week of productivity, for this quarter they'd have more capital. Thus, less need to borrow. Thus thus, better revenue:expense ratio. Thus thus thus, appearance of higher profitability. (Reason why it's important to look more profitable this quarter is unknown to me.)

Is that ideal long-term behavior?

Short-term focus means that you can't make hard decisions as easily. I.e., if Blizz had to sell Cataclysm to people without a sub model, they might be trying to convince people who hadn't been around for months that the game was still going in the right direction. Would that whole controversial healing model change have happened?

Whether you think it was for the best or not, point is, could the company even take steps like that if they had to optimally justify every expansion to every customer in order to stay in business? I.e.: If you only buy an expac every 6 months or so, you critique each purchase a lot more than if you just have a monthly expense.

Whenever I have a day where I think that having a sub fee would good for GW2:

cause then they can get more developers:

This is well said. Money isn't nearly the overarching, limiting factor people love to claim it is. And the common argument I see in response to the above quote is "hire more people then." But I think it's pretty easy to understand that looking for the perfect fit for a position is not always a quick process, nor is the training of new employees. This is particularly true when one is speaking about development studios generating creative media. Expertise, design philosophy, synergy, etc. are very important to the success of a project, not sheer headcount.
ur development teams are quite modest in size compared to a lot of studios, but it's because we genuinely feel it's not always good to have so many hands on a project. If that means we have to make tough decisions about how and when to release a product or feature, so be it.

Seems this is not the case, Blizzard refuses to hire more people. and I believe this is one of the few posts of Zarhym I can agree with. BUt if they don't have that many people, why do you need the large sub fee for content?

it increases the quality of the patches.

Patch 4.1, with ZA and ZG to keep us busy for months, while they leave certain classes/specs crippled for months. Enough said.

People can talk and judge as long as they want, but the reason why hasn't changed a bit, ArenaNet feels it's unnecessary to ask a subscription fee and still provide a good game and good service. They proved that with Guild Wars 1 and in the years ArenaNet has grown a lot (there's a picture of it somewhere with Colin smiling in the background), and with them spending extra time on quality and still provide enough quantity, I feel this game will be a hit.

Which raises an interesting consideration as well: Do we actually get a better game by driving profits by that sort of short-term "Whoa!" factor?

We might.

We might also not. I'd like to point to the sort of misguided efforts many corporations (at least in the US) have adopted on account of the quarterly profits mindset.

....

You have an interesting point. However, looking at how the expansions were for GW1 (I know GW2 =/= GW1, but it gives an idea of how Arenanet works) I think we will get a better game with each expansion. Guild Wars 1 is close to seven years old now, and I don't think they ever made a rushed decision/crappy expansion for some quick cash flow.

I enjoyed the firelands dailies alot. They made you feel like you were progressing in a sub-story of the firelands patch. The only thing i didnt like about it was how it ended. The farming of the same dailies at the end was quite the let down. But the gameplay up to that was pretty good imo.

I enjoyed the firelands dailies alot. They made you feel like you were progressing in a sub-story of the firelands patch. The only thing i didnt like about it was how it ended. The farming of the same dailies at the end was quite the let down. But the gameplay up to that was pretty good imo.

But that's the problem with dailies as a concept. You do them every day, when quests basically become gamer 'muscle memory' how on earth do you enjoy it from then on? Same thing with the 'endgame' concept; once you down hard mode final boss 'x' I don't see the motivation to continue farming. Now, there's always loot for everyone, but by limiting the amount of loot the raid becomes another way of rehashing content over and over and over until it becomes 'muscle memory'.

I'm going to go back to my first old MMO that I played. Asheron's Call was a fantastic game with a really open concept; players got to make what they wanted of the game. Even though it was a giant sandbox, they still had monthly content updates. This was at the advent of MMOs really catching on, there was Ultima Online, Everquest, and AC (along with others that really weren't as noteworthy) costs were a little more prohibitive (server wise, development team wise et al.) and they still pumped out monthly content updates. Questlines, storylines, bug fixes etc. The sub fee was exactly the same as WoW's is now, and despite running for a longer time than WoW they're still offering monthly content patches.

So while you were still on the subscription, you were on a treadmill that was a lot shorter, and you knew something new and possibly exciting was just around the corner. WoW doesn't come close to that in content delivery, and while I don't think GW2 will offer the same level of content delivery, you're not paying to expect that level.

Introducing stealth updates with dynamic events encourages players to explore, and to experience new storylines (because essentially event chains are short stories in the open world) and adventures just by coming across a new event. You aren't told, "hey, there's this new dragon questline/raid, you'll be playing that for 4-5 months now", you have different stories and different ways of experiencing those stories, and it's moving further away form a grind.

Now, PvP will likely be grindey, but with the equalization of stats you don't have to grind to stay competitive. To stay competitive you'll have to continue playing because players will think of new/exotic ways to win and if you don't keep up to date with how players are playing/strategizing, you'll lose because you won't have to tools in your playstyle to compete.

I definitely don't enjoy a bunch of kids teaming up in another MMO just so they don't have to play "that other MMO" yet talking about it all day long and congratulating each other that they all agree how bad it is.

This is soooo very true. Was thinking about using that as a signature for a sec.

I must be missing why 15 dollars a month is expensive or a big deal....because that's all this thread seems to be about. If the sub model doesnt work, they wont charge it, if you are feeling stiffed don't pay it....why are we discussing this or even getting hyped up about this? I really don't understand.

You are paying blizzard/bioware/arenanet for a service, it is their service to rock the world with or go bankrupt over I'm not seeing these big conspiracies or gouging you speak of, as you are not obliged or required by law to purchase these services.

I must be missing why 15 dollars a month is expensive or a big deal....because that's all this thread seems to be about. If the sub model doesnt work, they wont charge it, if you are feeling stiffed don't pay it....why are we discussing this or even getting hyped up about this? I really don't understand.

You are paying blizzard/bioware/arenanet for a service, it is their service to rock the world with or go bankrupt over I'm not seeing these big conspiracies or gouging you speak of, as you are not obliged or required by law to purchase these services.

The argument is that a subscription fee is superfluous (in most cases, especially as technology has evolved), and for the most part it is pure cream for the developers. Arena net is putting out what it believes to be a game that can compete with other big games, without charging a monthly fee.

Whether it's expensive or not you're essentially paying around $150 a year to play a game, plus the box cost. With the amount of content delivered in content patches, it's hard to justify $150+ dollars, because a lot of non-massively multiplayer games can offer similar experiences with no cost (hot joinable games like most FPS games, Diablo, Starcraft [ironically two Blizzard products]). Those games offer bug fixes and the occasional content updates, what makes WoW or other subscription based games worth the extra cash?

So GW2 is a challenge to the model of the MMO genre. They're looking to put out a top shelf game without price gouging its players. Regardless of whether you find $150 expensive or not, it's still $150 that you'll be able to spend as you choose (whether it be out there in the mystical real world, or a grocery store, or the in-game cash shop) you can play GW2, and stay competitive in the game. If you could play WoW/SWtOR/whatever else without a monthly fee, just the box price, wouldn't you do it?

I don't understand what people are so hesitant, or critical, about a buy to play model.

The argument is that a subscription fee is superfluous (in most cases, especially as technology has evolved), and for the most part it is pure cream for the developers. Arena net is putting out what it believes to be a game that can compete with other big games, without charging a monthly fee.

Whether it's expensive or not you're essentially paying around $150 a year to play a game, plus the box cost. With the amount of content delivered in content patches, it's hard to justify $150+ dollars, because a lot of non-massively multiplayer games can offer similar experiences with no cost (hot joinable games like most FPS games, Diablo, Starcraft [ironically two Blizzard products]). Those games offer bug fixes and the occasional content updates, what makes WoW or other subscription based games worth the extra cash?

So GW2 is a challenge to the model of the MMO genre. They're looking to put out a top shelf game without price gouging its players. Regardless of whether you find $150 expensive or not, it's still $150 that you'll be able to spend as you choose (whether it be out there in the mystical real world, or a grocery store, or the in-game cash shop) you can play GW2, and stay competitive in the game. If you could play WoW/SWtOR/whatever else without a monthly fee, just the box price, wouldn't you do it?

I don't understand what people are so hesitant, or critical, about a buy to play model.

Sadly, there are people who have no idea that the actual costs per month to run even the biggest MMO is miniscule compared to the amount of money they fork over month after month. They don't take into account that the money they're paying either gets them ZERO content, some content they might want and some they don't, or content they don't want at all. They continue to pay just to access the servers when no other genre does this, there are other games that host entire online services for no cost to the user post-box sale.

Standing by what I said about firelands dailes...sure, the setting was nice...and it was good to see the tree going up...but it was still an absolute grind fest, in my view, designed to keep people playing but at minimal designer effort...
...collect 100 marks to open a vendor, collect 150 more to open another vendor, collect 150 more to open up another vendor...it was verging on completely disgraceful, and borders on insidious.
And those dailes perfectly illustrate how sad the mmo community has become that they accept it.
It IS a big deal. In the grand scheme of things personally it's not big money...in 5 million sub fees it is. And it is just icing on the cake for companies, as many examples in this thread have shown.
/endrant

I wouldnt mind if GW2 would need a monthly fee as long the game is fun.
BUT its a great + that it doesnt. Heck you can even play WoW when you like it and dont have any extracosts. Its not you lose money when you decide to quit but your sub runs out in 30 days. You can quit any time, do something else and if you want you may play GW2 again. Thata great Advantage imo.

If the game is half as awesome as it sounds it will be awesome
I hope Anet does everything right. Even some of the Swtor guys concider to wait for GW2 now.

Standing by what I said about firelands dailes...sure, the setting was nice...and it was good to see the tree going up...but it was still an absolute grind fest, in my view, designed to keep people playing but at minimal designer effort...
...collect 100 marks to open a vendor, collect 150 more to open another vendor, collect 150 more to open up another vendor...it was verging on completely disgraceful, and borders on insidious.
And those dailes perfectly illustrate how sad the mmo community has become that they accept it.
It IS a big deal. In the grand scheme of things personally it's not big money...in 5 million sub fees it is. And it is just icing on the cake for companies, as many examples in this thread have shown.
/endrant

I agree, and for altoholics like me it has the effect that they will burn out - I know I did.

Everything in WoW is pretty much is pretty much "need to do", you have to max your VP every week and do dailies every day and.... I just started playing wow again two weeks ago and I'm already getting the feeling again, no dailies now but I "have to" do LFR on all my chars and frankly it isn't much fun but that's all there really is to do in the game for me anyway.

I didnt like Fireland Dailies either.
You have to quest half of the zone to unlock the entrance, then you have to quest to unlock another quest to unlock another quest wich might unlock a vendor. If you like your Alto to have that vendor too you are forced to do it all again. I wouldnt mind it if you could unlock it for your account but this is ridiculous. Bad design.
Also you are forced to level/quest in Hyjal although i liked vashir better. Noone is ever going to vashir because you have to quest a zone twice if you want to do dailies.

I stopped when i got my first 150 Tokens and only got another level of quests for it i was very dissapointed.. So i dont have much gold cause i cant craft highlevel stuff wich is demanded cause i have to pump another Month or so to get a Blueprint. I skipt the firelandpatch completly.

I think the Design of the Sunwellisle or the Colloseum was the best. The whole Server works to gether to unlock more content. If this happened EVERYONE can quest there even your alts.

Completely agree with both.
And I miss the opening of Silithis...man but that was epic. It really was working together then.
Praying the build-up to slaying some Elder Dragon Champions, or hopefully an Elder Dragon itself, could be similar...but better ofc

Completely agree with both.
And I miss the opening of Silithis...man but that was epic. It really was working together then.
Praying the build-up to slaying some Elder Dragon Champions, or hopefully an Elder Dragon itself, could be similar...but better ofc

I personally hope we never actually kill an elder dragon, at most I'd want to see one badly wounded or inprisoned, I think it dininishes the epicness of the enemies when we kill then all....

Originally Posted by draykorinee

Youre in the mmo forums and you find mmos boring, Im heading on over to the twilight forums to add my unecessary and shallow 2 cents.

Lol I was planning on going order of whispers anyway!! Btw, what is the third one? Cause I can't remember it at all...

Durmand Priory (which will be the choice on my guardian).

Originally Posted by Hellspawnxxx

Thank god you posted that pic done by Da Vinci The vitruvian man because to be honest I had NOOOO Idea what a Human body looked liked therefor had NO idea what you were refering too. With that said the sylvari are made of lettuce. If I twist up some cabage leaves too look like a human, it doesnt make it monohuman.

Originally Posted by Kelesti

That picture has four arms and four legs. It's not a human, so it's clearly a spider.